Help to Buy Equity Loan

It was confirmed in the Budget that a further £10bn will be allocated to the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme, which is designed to help people to buy a home with a 5% deposit.

Next generation vehicles

To support the transition to zero emission vehicles, the government will invest £200m, to be matched by private investment, into a new £400m Charging Investment Infrastructure Fund. £100m will be provided to guarantee continuation of the Plug-In Car Grant to 2020 to help consumers with the cost of purchasing a new battery electric vehicle.

The government has stated that it ‘wants to see fully self-driving cars, without a human operator, on UK roads by 2021’. The National Infrastructure Commission will launch a new innovation prize to determine how future roadbuilding should adapt to support self-driving cars.

Transport funding in England

£1.7bn will be allocated to improving transport in English cities. Half will be given to Combined Authorities with Mayors, and the rest allocated by a competition.

An extra £337m will go towards a fleet of new trains on the Tyne & Wear Metro. An extra £6m will go towards the Midlands Connect motorway and rail projects. Transport links along the Cambridge - Milton Keynes - Oxford corridor will also be improved.

Education and skills

Schools will get £600 for every extra pupil who takes A-Level or Core Maths and £350,000 of extra funding a year will be given to every specialist maths school that is set up.

£34m will be allocated to teaching construction skills. £30m will go towards digital courses using artificial intelligence. A National Retraining Scheme will be launched with the aim of helping people to acquire new skills. It will be overseen by the government, the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry. They will decide on other areas of the economy where new skills and training courses are needed.